Street Rats And Other Monsters
by afrai
Summary: Rukia picks up a friend in the Alley. AU. This is the story formerly known as Riffraff.
1. Riffraff

Author: afrai  
Summary: Rukia picks up a friend in the Alley.   
Disclaimer: KT's, not mine. Hollow!Renji is Aido's brainchild.   
Notes: For Aido, whose art inspired this story.

**Riffraff**

Rukia was scrabbling around in the 78th district dump when she felt it. It was like the tickle in the bridge of the nose when you are about to sneeze, except that with this it was the entire soul that seemed to itch. Rukia had only encountered the feeling a few times, mostly when the rare shinigami went into the higher-numbered districts on official business, but this time it was somehow different.

She sat up, ready to flee, and looked right up into the face of the Hollow.

She was to learn later that these creatures were dangerous, heartless, made up of nothing but the will to consume, but for now Rukia was eleven years old, surviving in one of the worst districts in the Alley with no protection but that afforded by her wits and her feet, and fear did not come easily to her.

And the Hollow was _fuzzy_. It padded closer on four feet and tilted its ugly, friendly face at her, and Rukia loved dogs with all the hunger of a child whose only experience of affection was a stray's snuffling wet nose in her palm. She fell in love immediately.

"Hey, boy," she said. She sat up and held out her hand. "C'mere. C'mon, I won't hurt you."

The Hollow tilted its face the other way and said, in a startling, deep rumble,

"Like you _could_."

Rukia gaped. Then the meaning of the words sank in, and she bridled, forgetting surprise. "Easier than you could hurt me!"

The Hollow yawned, baring ranks of serrated teeth and a long, curling pink tongue. The effect was somewhat spoilt by its starting to speak in the middle of the yawn, in its eagerness to retort. "I could eat -- _hawww_ -- two of you for breakfast, squirt."

Rukia gave the ribs protruding from the Hollow's thin sides a very insulting look, but pointedly said nothing about how the Hollow didn't look like it knew much about breakfasts. She sniffed and withdrew her hand.

"Fine," she said. "Then I _don't_ want you to c'mere. Go away."

The Hollow had clearly never been given such treatment in its life. The floating red glows in its eye sockets grew round for a moment, then it sputtered,

"Like you could make me!"

Rukia narrowed her eyes and looked down her nose at the Hollow, before turning away and pretending to find the garbage far more interesting than any fuzzy-maned creature in the vicinity. This was not true, of course, but Rukia had found long ago that the best way to put a person in his place was to pretend to be bored by him. With most people, it was not very hard to pretend.

"Oi!" Rukia ignored the voice. "Look at me! I know you can hear me! Oi, midget!"

Rukia's head whipped up, all intention to maintain a dignified aloofness subsumed in outrage. "How dare you call me that!"

"I'll call you anything I want!"

Rukia clenched her fists, but though she would learn that the Hollow was, at the time, small as Hollows went, it looked plenty big to her just then. She knew better than to get into a fight she couldn't win.

"No, you can't," she said finally, with tremendous hauteur. "Because I'm going away. So you can't call me _anything_."

With that, she picked herself up and stalked away, ignoring the rebellious grumble of her stomach. She clutched a dirty trinket or two, which could be sold for water, but nothing of near enough value to get her food. She would have to steal her food again, though it was too soon after her last theft -- and that meant moving, because they would get you if you stayed in the same place. They would always get you, sooner or later, but there were ways of keeping off the inevitable end, and Rukia meant to survive for as long as she could.

Moving meant starting anew in another neighbourhood, finding another place to sleep, currying just enough favour with the local adults to avoid being actively persecuted. Rukia raised a hand to rub the grit out of her eyes. The movement brought her back to her surroundings -- and to the brown fur in the edge of her vision.

Rukia whirled around. The Hollow cowered briefly before it remembered itself. It sat up and glared back.

"You were following me!" said Rukia. She rubbed her eyes energetically, daring the Hollow to mention the redness of her eyes.

"Of course I was, stupid!"

"Why?"

"Because -- !" The Hollow paused and looked surprised, as if only just realising that it did not have any good reason for creeping after her. Then it brightened. "Because you smell good."

There was a brief silence.

"Ew," said Rukia.

Bone couldn't blush, but the Hollow would have if it were even possible.

"I didn't mean it _that_ way, you crazy vain midget -- "

"If you didn't, then why did you say it?"

"I just meant that you smell like you taste good!" bawled the Hollow, goaded past endurance.

"You're going to _eat_ me?" said Rukia in disbelief.

The Hollow had driven itself into a corner.

"Yes," it said sullenly. "No. Maybe. If you're mean -- " It realised how stupid this sounded, and amended, "If you don't stop being a stupid bitch."

Rukia's face set in disapproving lines. "You shouldn't use bad words."

"I'm a monster! I can use any fucking words I want!"

Rukia hadn't, in fact, realised what sort of creature the Hollow was, though the threat of eating her had begun to rouse her suspicion. But she took the revelation in her stride.

"That doesn't matter," she snapped. "I bet you're not that much older than me. Children shouldn't talk like that, even if they're monster children."

"I am not a kid!"

"Oh? How old are you?" Rukia shot back.

The red glows rolled, but there was no way of backing out of the question.

"Thirteen," it said. "... okay. Twelve. I think."

"That's _much_ too young," said Rukia triumphantly. She stepped back and looked the Hollow over. It made a move to surge forward, but stopped and settled back on its haunches when it realised she wasn't trying to leave.

"Aren't you kind of young to be a monster?" said Rukia, ignoring the Hollow's embarrassment. "I thought monsters were all grown-ups."

The Hollow flinched.

"I don't know," it said. "It just happened."

"Did it hurt?"

"No," said the Hollow, but it wouldn't look at her. It seemed to sense that she wasn't going to let go of the topic, though, because it added, "I don't remember," and that had a ring of truth to it, even if it wasn't the whole truth.

Rukia sat down and made herself comfortable. Things were getting interesting. The Hollow shot her a look out of the corners of its eyes. Then it crept a little closer and sat down, exactly in the way that a dog does.

"What's it like being a monster?" said Rukia. The Hollow seemed uncomfortable with the subject altogether, but it made an effort and thought about it.

"Hungry," it said.

Rukia didn't see how this was so different from being human. "Have you eaten lots of people?"

The Hollow squirmed.

"One," it said, after it became clear that Rukia wasn't going to back off.

"Oh," said Rukia, disappointed. But one was better than none, which was what Rukia had begun to fear the answer would be, considering the look of the Hollow's ribs. "Did it taste good?"

"He," said the Hollow shortly.

"What?"

"He," said the Hollow, its voice rising so that even that deep rumble sounded young and angry. "He was seven years old and he died three years ago and his name was Masaru and he tasted like water and he would've died anyway and I didn't like it so _shut up_!"

The shout echoed off the heaps of garbage, precipitating small avalanches. Rukia stared at the Hollow. The Hollow drooped.

"You shouldn't have asked," it said, when the silence became too much for it to bear.

"What?"

The Hollow bristled. "I'm _not_ sorry I yelled at you, you stupid bi -- "

"Shh!" said Rukia. She scrambled up and paused, her small, thin face intent, seeking with senses other than sight or hearing.

"There's nobody here," she said. "That's strange. There's usually people here, looking for things to sell." _Same as me_, she didn't say.

The Hollow flattened its head on its paws and mumbled something.

"What did you say?" said Rukia.

"I _said_, they've gone away because of me, dumbass," said the Hollow. "People do that. Guess they don't want to be eaten either."

"Oh," said Rukia again, but this time she didn't sound disappointed. She let herself down, folding her limbs into sitting position, and looked at the Hollow.

"But you don't eat people," she said.

"Not anymore," said the Hollow. "'S long as they don't annoy me."

Rukia ignored this piece of bravado.

"Why did you follow me, Monster?" she said.

"Renji," said the Hollow.

Rukia did not say "what" this time. She nodded. "Why did you follow me, Renji?"

The Hollow glowered at the inoffensive ground.

"You smelt hungry too," he said finally.

Rukia nodded again, as if this somehow settled things.

"I am," she admitted. "Horribly."

She stood up. Renji got up with her.

"I wish I could eat people," she said.

"No, you don't," said Renji. Rukia stretched out two hands and carefully took his head between them, her fingers sinking into the fur. He stank of unwashed dog, but the fur was soft, and Renji made a pleased rumbling sound when she stroked it.

"Are you less like a real monster because you're a kid, Renji?" she said.

"Don't know," he said. "That _your_ reason?"

Rukia shook her head, but:

"I wish I could eat people," was all she said.

Renji pushed his head against her hand when she seemed about to remove it.

"Maybe you already do," he said.

She kept her hand on the warm back of his neck as they walked, two children together; he didn't eat her then, or later.

_End._


	2. Hunger is a wanderer

Author: afrai  
Summary: If there's anything Renji wants, it's something he can't have.

**Hunger is a wanderer**

Rukia slept half-wrapt around Renji, to keep away the cold of winter; Renji, who rarely slept, stayed awake and watched the night.

They were safer than most of the children in the Alley, protected by the hole punched through Renji's heart. They would sense any real threat before it came, shinigami or Hollow, so Renji mostly watched Rukia.

When they got older he started feeling hungrier, an urgent gnawing ache that followed him like a bad memory, but was worst when he watched Rukia sleep, her limbs white in the dark. He did not understand the urge himself, but when once he gave in to the temptation to mouth her thin arm, taking it delicately between his jaws, the ache only got worse. But in an odd way, it was _pleasant_. He felt wild and hungry and exhilarated, as if on the hunt. He wanted more.

It was when he was trying to figure out what _more_ meant that Rukia woke up.

The silence that ensued was somewhat embarrassed.

"Ungf," said Renji.

Rukia did not say anything. He let go. She took her arm back and moved to touch the reddened grooves his teeth had left in her flesh (Renji breathed fast, his claws scrabbling in the dirt), but then she changed her mind. She said, almost off-hand,

"Do you want it?"

Renji's eyes rolled. "What?"

Rukia had bowed her head so her hair hid her face. "I only need one arm," she said. "And -- if you're hungry -- "

Renji gaped.

"I know the food we get doesn't really -- " said Rukia, and stopped.

Renji's powers of speech began to return to him.

"Dumbass," he said. "Who would eat _you_?"

Rukia's eyes widened. "You ungrateful -- I was trying to be kind, but clearly kindness is wasted on _some_ people -- "

"If you wanna be kind, try not being such a moron it's exhausting to talk to you!"

"Oh!" Rukia sat up. He thought she would stalk away, and then he would have to spend a long weary day keeping out of her sight and senses, because she didn't like to think that finding her was, for him, as easy as breathing -- these days, easier.

But she only said, brusque,

"Fool. It is no advantage to me if you are ill-fed. What use will you be if you are always thinking of food?"

Renji did not try to explain that this was not the way it worked for Hollows; that what your average monster dreamt of was not fresh meat flavoured with the unique seasoning of human experience, but more insubstantial things -- the loves they had had, the joy and even sadness they'd felt, before these things had been taken from them. That he was hungry, but only eating Rukia whole would appease the hunger -- all of her, every memory, every thought, every secret she kept locked in that mysterious heart. And when she was gone he would still be hungry: always, always alone.

Sometimes he was tempted -- to taste her innermost thoughts on his tongue; to peel her down, layer by layer; to have her, finally, inside him, where she could be forever inviolate. But so to take was to lose, and -- and she deserved more. Renji would not have had her if she had offered herself.

He only made this last clear. "Speak for yourself," he rumbled, "_I'm_ not the one with the one-track mind here," and he turned his back on her and curled in on himself.

An indignant silence behind him: then Rukia kicked him in the back and said,

"Move over, idiot."

He made space so she could lean against him, surrounded on all sides by fur. She closed her eyes, still frowning, but when Renji started thinking she'd dropped off she said, whispering against his flank,

"But still, Renji ... if you wanted ... "

"Don't want anything," he said curtly, so that Rukia went to sleep with a marked scowl dragging down the black flicks of her eyebrows. He stayed awake, repeating the lie over to himself, with Rukia curled sweetly close. (His teeth had pressed against the bone, sinking in soft flesh.) It was near enough the truth, anyway -- if there was anything he wanted, this much was for certain: it was something he couldn't have.

_End._


End file.
